I don’t care if it’s “better” than the existing system, Mozilla should not be helping the advertising industry at all. They should be actively working to block any and all attempts to gain access to user data, flat out. They are not, and their acquisition of an ad company shows that their motives are not in line with what their users want. They’re a company after money, no different than any other. Big fucking shame, but when you hire business people and operate as a business, you can’t have true integrity no matter what your supposed mission is. Yes, Mozilla operates a nonprofit but they also operate a corporation, and the corporation exists to make money above all else which is why they’ve succumbed to this ad industry bullshit. I hope we see a viable third option for browser, but until then the best option is a Firefox fork that actually gives a damn about the user and not just their wallets. I’ve switched to using LibreWolf on all of my devices. Like Firefox, but without the anti-user, pro-ad-industry garbage turned on by default. I’ve been calling Firefox adware for years now ever since they started stuffing Mozilla VPN ads, sponsored link garbage, “Pocket recommendations” horseshit, and all the other paid/sponsored nonsense in users’ faces without their permission but people were like “no no Mozilla is actually good”…cut it out, Mozilla has shown their hands very clearly now. They want the advertising $$$ and are willing to give up any respect and integrity they used to have for it. They aren’t at the level of Chrome and Google, but they’re inching closer every day and acquiring their own ad company certainly isn’t going to help in that regard.

Mozilla is a for-profit company and is bound to enshittify just like any other for-profit company. Tracking, ads, and a focus on unnecessary bullshit like Pocket and recommendations have long indicated that Mozilla doesn’t give a shit about the user. They want to shove AI in the browser just like all the others. Unfortunately, the best browser is still Firefox, but at least use a privacy focused fork like LibreWolf that also strips Mozilla’s other bullshit away rather than using Firefox straight up.

They’ve been this way for over a decade, it’s not Elon. I do believe that early Google actually cared about “don’t be evil” but that ended before 2010.